Daily Current Affairs: 19th October 2015

The typhoon, Koppu, has hit Philippines hard after the around 16000 villagers were displaced in the country along with 2 deaths reported due to the slow-moving yet strong cyclone

Buddi Suddhi yagya has been performed by the Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha on Sunday in order to bring back the senses in the Sahitya Akademi Award winning authors who have returned their awards in protest against the lack of freedom of speech and action in the country under the current government

In the 3rd ODI in Rajkot, South Africa defeated India as India managed only 252 for 6 in reply to the visiting team’s 271 on the back of a superb century by Quinton de Kock

World’s largest online retailer Amazon has filed a lawsuit against 1114 fake reviewers who have tarnished the brand reputation of the company by offering inauthentic reviews

Banking and Finance

Economic Times Awards for Corporate Excellence the year 2015 has been announced. Kunal Bahl of Snapdeal has been adjudged the entrepreneur of the year whereas Uday Kotak is the business leader of the industry for the year. Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion Secretary Amitabh Kant has been honoured with the award for the “Policy Change Agent” and New and renewable energy minister Piyush Goyal is the “Business Reformer” of the year. S Ramadoarai has been awarded with the Lifetime achievement award for the year by the Economic Times Group

Mani Rangrajan has been appointed as the Chief Finance Officer of the online realty portal Housing.com. Rangrajan is a veteran in the industry with similar roles in the past with Yahoo and Citigroup

Chinese Mobile Phone maker Vivo has been chosen as the title sponsor for IPL after PepsiCo pulled out last week. The mobile company has signed a deal for 2 years and it will pay an amount of Rs 150 crore

India’s largest private company Reliance India Limited has decided to foray in the ecommerce business with an astounding 1.5 lakh vendors by the end of 2016. The company is planning to induct around 30000 vendors by the end of this month in its effort to take on the ecommerce giants like Flipkart, Snapdeal, Aamzon etc

Balwinder Singh Canth has been appointed in the board of Indian Oil Corporation as its director of Marketing. Prior to this appointment, Canth was the Executive Director of Consumer sales in Indian Oil’s marketing headquarters in Mumbai

The Supreme Court has asked the Telangana Government to return Rs 175 crore it has collected from Lanco Kondapalli Power Limited over a period of 10 years. The court rejected the pleas of Andhra Pradesh Power Coordination Committee and AP Discoms Limited, in the matter and passed the order in favour of the company which is a group company of Lanco Infratech

After reaching the magic figure of Rs 1 trillion worth of asset under management along with around 1 crore subscriber base under the National Pension System in the first week of October, the pension fund regulator PFRDA has approached the central government for some fiscal support to expand its base further in the current fiscal

For the first time, Mutual Fund houses are giving investors opportunity to produce e-KYC in order to make the whole process of investing in mutual funds easier and customer-friendly

In order to boost its business, BSNL is going to launch a convergence platform for the mobile subscribers and landline subscribers in order to give the mobile phone users extra benefit of free night calls, extra data pack if they avail themselves of specific plans in their landline phones

Industrialists from India, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh have come together to set up a forum named BBIN for the promotion of business activities in the countries

GK and World Affairs

The national capital has got the 2nd monumental national flagpole in the Chanakyapuri area of the city. The 105 ft high flagpole has been inaugurated by the Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal

Indian Navy has signed a deal with Russian firm Zvezdochka in order to increase the service life of its boats to 35 years at least. Suffering from depleting fleet numbers, Navy has decided to increase the service lives as an alternative to induct new submarines. The first submarine will be sent to Russia next year for refit

In its bid to control the soaring prices of pulses in the country, the central government has decided to impose stock limits of pulses for large retailers, food processors and exporters. The centre has asked the states to crack down on hoarding practices strictly. This has been done under the provisions of the Essential Commodities Act, 1955

New Nepal Government’s first envoy, its Deputy PM, Kamal Thapa, has met External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj in order to discuss issued related to the new constitution in Nepal along with the issue of blockade of around 2500 trucks in the India-Nepal border by the Madhesis. The Deputy PM of the hill nation will hold a meeting with PM Modi today

An Old Dog’s Diary, a short-film of 11 minutes duration has received the award for the best short film 2015 in the London Film Festival 2015. The film is directed by Shumona Goel and Shai Heredia and it is based on the Indian avant-garde painter Francis Newton Suoza

Rajasthan government cancelled 601 mining allocation licenses after the opposition raised an alarm for corrupt practices in awarding the firms to the miners and developers

US President Barrack Obama has ordered the US government to take steps towards lifting the economic sanctions against Iran after the country has agreed to a historic nuclear deal with the P5+1 countries

Rajasthan government has issued the official notification regarding the special 5% quota for gujjars and other special backward classes in the state. The bill, to this effect, was passed in the assembly last month. The quota will be available for jobs and educational courses

Sports and Technology

IMPRINT-a one-stop single-window funding mechanism for technical companies to conduct research initiatives is all set to be launched next month by the Union Government. The fund has been created with an initial corpus of 1000 crore and it will come in handy for technical institutions wanting to go for original research projects

In the working committee meeting under new President Shashank Manohar, the BCCI decided to keep the 2 IPL teams Rajasthan Royals and Chennai Super Kings suspended for 2 years. In place of these teams, BCCI will float tenders for 2 new teams for the 2016 and 2017 editions of the tournament. The suspension was suggested in the Justice R M Lodha committee that was set up to probe the 2013 IPL Spot-fixing scandal

Indian Shuttler P V Sindhu lost in her maiden super series final in Denmark to the defending champion, China’s Li Xuerui, 21-19, 21-12

En route to his ninth title of the year, Novak Djokovic had a cakewalk in the finals of the Shanghai Masters as his compatriot Jo Wilfried Tsonga was no match for the World No 1. Djokovic defeated the hapless Frenchman easily 6-1, 6-4

Australian Scott Hend has defeated Anirban Lahiri in the Macau Open Golf tournament as the Indian failed to defend his title which he won the last year